Try the best jobs going in the downturn: VentureBeat writer and VentureBeat intern

Do you have a passion for non-fiction writing and technology?

Want to get involved with one of the most respected and influential blogs right now — with a top position on the Techmeme Leaderboard and syndication in outlets like the New York Times?

If your answers are yes, VentureBeat may be for you. We’ve been making a lot of moves lately and have more in store.

We’re looking for full-time writers, as well as a … Continue Reading

Who's got game? Introducing the GamesBeat 2009 startup competition

Who’s got game? That’s what we’ll be asking during a special competition happening at VentureBeat’s inaugural games conference for the industry’s top players, on March 24, 2009, at the Mission Bay Conference Center on UCSF’s campus in San Francisco, CA.

Opportunity for Innovators One of the goals of GamesBeat is to give entrepreneurs a platform to share some of the newest innovations most likely to move the gaming industry forward. We’re challenging companies with the … Continue Reading

VentureBeat at Sundance with Matt Marshall and Shira Lazar: the widget

[Update from Matt: We just finished our last task here at Sundance, about 24 hours after we started our first task. And we actually won the competition! Many thanks to those of you who tuned in to watch us. It was a highly rewarding experience (although frequently embarrassing; making rooster crows in the morning topped it off) and a great insight into how this festival works and the gusto with which people attend … Continue Reading

PartnerUp's Weekly Opportunities

Below you’ll find this week’s PartnerUp Opportunities of the week.

PartnerUp, a Deluxe Company, is an online community for entrepreneurs and startups that helps them find people for their businesses, such as co-founders, business partners, advisers, board members and skilled technical workers. In addition, PartnerUp helps entrepreneurs ask for and offer up advice, find commercial real estate and locate resources for their businesses.

The PartnerUp team blogs on the StartUp Blog, an up-and-coming site about … Continue Reading

The first 100 tickets to The Crunchies 2008 are on sale!

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been taking nominations for the Crunchies 2008. You have voiced your support for your favorite startups, the most impressive entrepreneurs and the coolest gadgets.

Now, we’re opening up sales for the event.

This year’s Crunchies will be held at San Francisco’s Herbst theater at 7:30 on the evening of January 19th.

Today, we and our co-hosts, TechCrunch, GigaOm and Silicon Alley Insider, are puttting the first 100 tickets on … Continue Reading

Announcing The Crunchies 2008

VentureBeat is happy to officially announce The Crunchies 2008 — the second year of this tech-startup awards ceremony.

With the economic downturn setting in, there may be fewer business successes to celebrate for the foreseeable future. So it’s more important than ever to recognize companies and leaders of excellence.

On January 9th at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, VentureBeat — along with co-hosts TechCrunch, GigaOm and Silicon Alley Insider — will award the pictured … Continue Reading

"Downturn" roundtable event is tomorrow: What questions are on your mind?

The VentureBeat “how to manage your start-up in a downturn” roundtable event happens tomorrow. We’ll be talking to John Doerr from VC firm Kleiner Perkins, Ram Shriram — one of Google’s first investors — Max Levchin of Slide and Jason Calacanis of Mahalo, among others.

Despite the dot-com bust, many of our participants flourished during the last recession and each will have a unique take on how entrepreneurs can get through this one. We have … Continue Reading

Lala convinces major record labels to be a little less dumb

Have you ever been sitting at your computer, wishing you could listen to your music collection without being forced to open a desktop application? If so, Lala is launching just the thing for you.

Since the beginning of the summer, Lala has offered a service that lets you stream any song one time, then pay $.10 for the right to stream it as often as you want. The Palo Alto-based company has now convinced the … Continue Reading

Amidst the cacophony of music start-ups, ReverbNation echoes

While grinning investment bankers, safe pension funds and good returns from tech stocks may be hard to come by for the foreseeable future, the world does not lack start-ups promising to help indie musicians. Among them, ReverbNation, which has just raised $3 million, looks like a serious contender.

Companies like Topspin Media, an early-stage music marketing platform, and Tunecore, which offers a relatively easy way to distribute albums across multiple online stores, have partial answers … Continue Reading

LP33.tv launches the underground's answer to MySpace Music

Today, LP33.tv, the company formerly known as MyAWOL, goes live with its intensely ambitious site for unsigned musicians. The site centers around a video player that features original music videos, short band documentaries and news clips, all produced by LP33′s team. There are rapid edits, hipster rockers, punky pop princesses, and cooler-than-thou VJs, all hearkening back to the MTV and VH1 glory days of yore.

LP33′s goal is to create a platform for finding and … Continue Reading

Kampyle lets you know when no one likes your desktop software

When people think your downloadable software sucks, it’s generally hard to find out what you did wrong. Web-based analytics make it easy to track the number of downloads you get, but after that the information tends to dry up. That’s where Kampyle, an Israeli analytics startup, has found what looks like a good business opportunity. Its service will let you know if your software’s being used or immediately uninstalled. And it’ll tell you how many … Continue Reading

The Seasteading Institute encourages floating nations, hosts conference

Peter Thiel, the famous PayPal founder, hedge fund manager and angel investor, has a minor tendency to put money into outlandish concepts.

The early Facebook investor is the leading contributor to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, an organization dedicated to advancing humanity through the creation of a super-intelligent but friendly AI. He has also given $500,000 to The Seasteading Institute, a less well known but perhaps equally far-out think tank whose mission is to … Continue Reading

MobileChat demonstrates the wrong way to release an iPhone IM app, gives game to Beejive

After almost two months, the perpetually dysfunctional MobileChat has finally released an update to its instant messaging iPhone app. And you know what? It’s too late. I waited forever for an update and now I don’t care.

MobileChat had the opportunity to own cross-platform instant messaging on the iPhone. When it launched at the beginning of August, its primary competition came from apps called Palringo and IM+. They’re both free and passable applications, but each … Continue Reading

Crowdsourcing the future: Can alternate reality game Superstruct help save the world?

The year is 2019. Respiratory Distress Syndrome, or REDS, has appeared in Stockholm, the first city outside of the tropics to see a case. The disease is known to overwhelm local health resources everywhere it goes, and news of health insurance companies going belly up has become routine. Word is spreading that in the absence of effective governmental responses, ad hoc militias have been forming to forcibly quarantine infected populations around the globe.

On its … Continue Reading

Mayfield, a dot-com juggernaut without a recent home run, raises $395 million fund

As the world sits of the doorstep of the biggest financial disaster since 1931, is Silicon Valley biting its nails? Mayfield Fund doesn’t think so. The firm, once considered the peer of the biggest names in venture capital, has raised a $395 fund and says it did so within its anticipated timeline and amidst high demand.

In February, when we last took a look at Mayfield, Kevin Fong, a partner and once considered one of … Continue Reading

Yotify wants to let you subscribe to everything

If BranchNext, maker of Yotify, has its way, you will one day be able to get updates on everything that matters to you on the web. Do you like that shirt you saw on CafePress but don’t want to throw down all that cash? Yotify would love to tell you when it goes on sale. Looking for a two bedroom apartment in downtown Manhattan? Yotify wants to be there for you when one opens up.… Continue Reading

At TechStars, 12 teams show that Boulder, CO, can produce fantastic tech

“Boulder is good for engineers — if you’re into innovation in rock climbing technology,” a friend once quipped about the outdoor-loving Colorado college town. But today, 12 startups from TechStars, a Boulder-based incubator, demoed their products in Mountain View, Calif. and did a good job of building on the city’s reputation as a budding center for high-tech. Almost down to a team, each of companies that presented this morning felt strong.

The TechStars demo reviews:… Continue Reading

Norwest Venture Partners sets it sights on Israel with new appointment

Norwest Venture Partners, one of Silicon Valley’s leading VC firms, has brought in Dror Nahumi, a former executive from one of Israel’s largest telecoms, to lead the firm’s investments in Israeli start-ups.

Israel’s start-up scene, which relies almost entirely on business from outside the country, has been posting good numbers. According to IVC, Israel’s VC research center, the country’s high tech sector saw $3.2 billion in mergers and acquisitions and $701 million in IPOs in … Continue Reading

Right90 raises $10 million to sell the world on "bottom-up" sales forecasting

Right90, a Foster City, California, company specializing in “bottom-up sales forecasting” software, has raised $10 million in its third round of financing.

According to salesopedia, a handy glossary for sales and marketing terms, bottom-up sales forecasting is “an approach…which takes market conditions rather than the company’s objectives as its basis.” In practice, this means looking deeper than executives’ predictions and assembling granular data from the people doing the selling, themselves. Instead of projecting that “we’ll … Continue Reading

CityVoter offers local media outlets city guides for their dull websites, raises $2.6 million

The hyper-local concept, which revolves around content — like business reviews — targeted to local niches, has had it rough. Over the last 18 months, two venture-backed start-ups, Judy’s Book and BackFence, have had to shut down. Another site, Insider Pages, sold to Citysearch without generating much of a return to its investors. Only Yelp seems to have gained a significant following.

So you might think investing in another local review company doesn’t make too … Continue Reading